Thomas King's The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America just won this year's RBC Taylor Prize for literary nonfiction and I must confess that I find it a curious choice. Although the stories he shares are undoubtedly true, he prefaces the book by saying that this is not a conventional history because then he "would be obliged to pay attention to the demands of scholarship and work within an organized and clearly delineated chronology". It is, rather, "a series of conversations and arguments that I've been having with myself and others for most of my adult life", but out of respect for history "I've salted my narrative with those things we call facts, even though we should know by now that facts will not save us". Definitely not a work of fiction, but I am still musing about how this book fits whatever criteria the RBC Taylor Prize committee considers.
In any event, I really wanted to like this
book. Reading the author bio, I was struck by the fact that he was a Professor
of Native American Studies at the University of Lethbridge at the same time
that I was a student there -- and I did take two courses in his field way back
then. The first (intro) course was taught by a soft-spoken Professor -- a Native
man in braids and a bone choker -- who told us stories; fascinating mythologies
and cultural anecdotes. What I remember most about the course was that there
were no tests, just one research paper -- on any Native topic we chose, and I
wrote an overview of the Tlingit nation. Could that have been Professor King?
(The second course was taught by a fierce and brilliant Native woman who first
told me about most of the outrages I encountered in this book -- and she made
such an impression on me at the time that I might have been caught up in a
chant of "Where are the warriors?" had one broken out.) In a nice
symmetry, King is now a Professor at the university where my daughter studies.
I am also interested in books about Natives (fiction and non-fiction) because,
not only do I join my voice with those whom King mocks as constantly asking
"What do the Indians want", but as I'm 1/8 Mik'miq (enough blood for
me to have first cousins with Status cards) I have family history of my own to
add to the conversation.
Out of ignorance, disregard, frustration, and expediency, North America set about creating a single entity, an entity that would stand for the whole.
The Indian.
Or as J.R.R. Tolkien might have said, “One name to rule them all, One name to find them, One name to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.”
After making that complaint, King proceeds to lump all of the North American settlers together as "the Whites", and no matter how systemic the policies of extermination and assimilation may have been, I am no more responsible for the massacre at Wounded Knee than I am for the racism he has personally experienced -- yet we are, indeed, all lumped together. And speaking of assimilation:
"Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated," could well have been spoken by John A. Macdonald and Andrew Jackson. Or Stephen Harper and George W. Bush.
I have no idea who Stephen Harper or George W. Bush have tried to assimilate -- lumping them together makes it sounds like a reference to the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars -- but as wrong-headed as those invasions may appear in retrospect, who were they attempting to assimilate? Actually, every time King mentions Prime Minister Harper he does it with a sneer and that may reflect the author's views as an ivory tower elite as much as his views as a Native man. This comes off as very petty when he mocks Harper for a "stingy" apology -- which apology Harper made in reference to the abominable Residential School System in 2008 to an assembled group of First Nations in the House of Commons -- an apology that at the time was accepted and promised the beginning of healing. (King also complains that the Native elders who attended the ceremony dressed themselves like "Dead Indians" -- in feathered headdresses and buckskin -- but I fail to see how that was anyone's decision but their own.) Another complaint:
North America defends democracy as the cornerstone of social, religious, and political enlightenment because it is obliged to think well of itself and its institutions.
And:
You might wish to describe Christianity as the gateway drug to supply-side capitalism.
Throughout The Inconvenient Indian, King demonizes not just Christianity (for which I empathise with his view re Natives) but also democracy and capitalism. I've heard it said before that it's not fair for "the Whites" (to use King's term) to judge the Native population by how well they participate in our economy -- unemployment on reserves is often shocking -- but I honestly thought that Natives (to lump them together a la King) wanted for there to be more employment opportunities available to them (and this is apparently just another form of paternalism). And it wasn't before I read this book that I understood why Native bands push back against individual members having title to property -- I have often heard that idea proposed (not only would individuals then have some capital to invest or start businesses, but home ownership might spark the pride that would prompt people to take better care of their houses) -- but I do now see how that could lead to a band losing their entire reserve, piece by piece, within a few generations (and I agree that's more likely due to tricky developers than the Natives' inability to make good financial decisions). What I don't understand is how the individual Native bands can thrive or even survive if they don't participate in the capitalism and democracy that surrounds them -- and King doesn't offer any solutions (even regretting the lucrative casinos that some bands have opened).
The question of "What do the Indians want?" is turned around to "What do the Whites want?" and King answers: land. That's really simplistic -- I have never in my life met anyone who wishes that the Natives would just dry up and blow away so that we can finally get their land (and remember -- I lived in Lethbridge, Alberta at the same time that King encountered terrible racism there). I have met many people who, like me, wonder often: how do we help the Natives? As a lumped together group, they are certainly not invisible here in Canada (and, yes, most of the news we see is negative) and I don't know one person who thinks the status quo is fine -- but that swings both ways: as much as no one wants to see children in northern Labrador huffing gasoline or a toddler in Alberta shot through the walls of her home, no one has a lot of patience for Native occupiers attacking elderly folks or reports of millions of dollars being mismanaged by tribal councils while the reserves they govern suffer horrifying poverty. King says that it comes down to sovereignty, but like a lot of people, I don't really understand what that means: for Native bands to continue to receive millions of dollars from the federal government with no accountability; even to each band's membership? For the government of Canada not to intervene on the reserves, even when they become a haven for black marketeering? Recently, the government of Canada has ceded greater responsibility for education to the reserves, along with a couple billion in new funding, but is the government not then allowed to monitor those education results?
What I do know is that The Inconvenient Indian is an angry book. Even the humour -- said to be hilarious and sagacious and represented in the quotes I used above -- is really just snarky and off-putting. 500 years of mistreatment by "the Whites" should cause anger in "the Indians" and the glacial pace of treaty settlements in Canada is a national embarrassment -- something must be done -- but, although King writes as though the occupation in Caledonia, for example, was justified, the rest of Canada just sees armed terrorists in masks and I don't see how this new militancy will lead to settlements. I don't know if most Natives know that the vast majority of the rest of Canada wants for them to be happy and healthy and pursuing whatever lifestyle will most fulfill them, but if they want for us all to band together to put pressure on the federal government to do the right thing once and for all, we'll need to be won over: think Martin Luther King instead of Idle No More (because blockading commuter trains and allowing yourself to be represented by the bumbling Chief Theresa Spence gains no supporters where I live).
The Inconvenient Indian is a valuable collection of the historical injustices done in the names of colonialism and expansionism and also an interesting look into the mind of "one of Canada's premier Native public individuals" -- it's certainly a worthwhile read -- but its anger often rubbed me the wrong way and it lacked a vision for the future; fatal flaws to me.
